Broadway Today

1	Hairspray, musical play~Good Morning Baltimore / Marissa Jaret Winokur From Hairspray 3:43
2	The Producers, musical play~The King of Broadway / Nathan Lane From the Producers 5:11
3	The Lion King, musical play~Circle of Life / Tsidi Leloka From The Lion King 4:33
4	Movin' Out, ballet~Movin' Out / Michael Cavanaugh From "Movin' Out" 2:37
5	Movin' Out, ballet~Goodnight Saigon / Michael Cavanaugh from Movin' Out 5:00
6	Beauty and the Beast, musical play~Beauty and the Beast [From Beauty an / Beth Fowler 3:35
7	Mamma Mia!, musical play~Mamma Mia! / Siobhán McCarthy From Mamma Mia! The Musical 3:24
8	La bohème, opera~O soave fanciulla [From Baz Luhrmann's Production of Pucc / Huang Wei 3:45
9	Thoroughly Modern Millie, musical play~What Do I Need With Love? [From / Gavin Creel 3:04
10	The Producers, musical play~I Wanna Be A Producer / Matthew Broderick From the Producers 6:02
11	Aida, musical play~Elaborate Lives / Heather Headley From Aida 4:29
12	Hairspray, musical play~You Can't Stop the Beat / Matthew Morrison From Hairspray 5:13
13	Chicago, film score (2003)~Overture / All That Jazz / Catherine Zeta-Jones Bonus Track 6:04

Barnes & Noble

Anyone with the faintest doubts that Broadway is currently in excellent shape should turn immediately to this discerningly chosen and thoroughly enjoyable sampler. With signature selections culled from some of the most successful productions on the Great White Way -- including The Producers, Mama Mia!, Movin’ Out, The Lion King, Chicago, and Hairspray -- Broadway Today makes a fine case for the resilience of the contemporary musical. A world of composers is in evidence, from Hollywood professionals (Marc Shaiman) to Broadway veterans (John Kander) to pop stars (Elton John, Billy Joel) and even lucky neophytes like Mel Brooks. As this compendium proves, you can’t pigeonhole the sound of the modern musical, and to paraphrase one of the brightest selections on the album, you can’t stop the Broadway beat. William Pearl

All Music Guide

Sony Classical's 2003 compilation Broadway Today is in effect the show music equivalent of one of the Now collections of current pop music in that half of it is licensed from other record labels for a thorough survey of the music to be heard on the Great White Way at the time of its release. Every one of the tracks was from a show running on Broadway when the album was released, including material from the previous three winners of the Tony Award for best musical, The Producers (2001), Thoroughly Modern Millie (2002), and Hairspray (2003). The tracks are culled from original Broadway cast albums, with the exception of the "bonus track," "Overture/All That Jazz," from the original soundtrack to Chicago, the 1996 revival of which has become a Broadway long-runner. As such, the collection gives a good sense of what Broadway music was like in 2003, and, as the unsigned liner notes put it, "the energy of contemporary pop music has changed everything." Or rather, not contemporary pop music -- there's no hip-hop or teen pop here -- but pop music of recent vintage. This is the Broadway of ABBA, Billy Joel, and Elton John, at least in part, so "'70s pop music" would be more like it. But it is also a nostalgic Broadway in which shows look back to an earlier time in their musical styles. Hairspray is rooted in the early '60s, and leadoff track "Good Morning Baltimore" sounds like a Phil Spector production. "Overture/All That Jazz" is a pastiche of '20s pop music. The two selections from The Producers are pastiches of show music from the '50s or earlier. And "O Soave Fanciulla" from La Bohème is, simply, an opera aria. So, there is much greater variety than you might get by sampling the Broadway scores of years gone by. But there is no denying that the pace-setting work is from the likes of Joel and John. William Ruhlmann